


What Is Left of Us

by franart



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 13:10:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18993298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/franart/pseuds/franart
Summary: When Gaster arrived, he came as a shadow, a spirit.





	What Is Left of Us

Dr. W. D. Gaster, once a luminous mind in the fields of medicine and engineering, had long since been torn away from his duties once held as the former Royal Scientist. The nature of the accident had not only ripped him away from his future, but from his past and present as well. Except for a small group of monsters who had retained their memories, his absence had been completely unnoticed.

It would have been disturbing and lonely for anyone, but the skeleton monster had preferred solitude in life as well. For some time, he had then felt that his purpose was yet greater, grander, the service of a formless, fabulous sort of darkness. Just to contemplate the newfound existence of the void could be mesmerizing, though currently no one but him knew just how beguiling the exact nature of non-existence could feel. 

But oh, how the Followers had tried to imagine. For months now, there his Followers had been reverent of his occasional appearances before them, the coded text he had managed to send them. Gaster had to admit, it had been flattering, reminiscent of his past life. But the prospect of a true partner in the Void had interested him, as ethically dubious as it was.

"It might not be long before you disappear from this timeline completely... Shouldn't you be working to prevent that? What makes Dr. Alphys special enough to seek out? I know you two worked together before you disappeared but..." 

"He really does believe that she may become like him."

  


Still in an old pair of pajamas, Alphys hastily grabbed a clean lab coat to put on as she ran to the door. Out of the darkness, Gaster's skeletal hands flourished in greeting. "Hello." 

"O-oh..." Alphys stammered in disbelief. "What happened?! We'd all thought you'd..." "You really thought I had simply died? You, who have yourself resurrected the dead, are really so afraid?" Gaster's genuine smile, despite everything, finally drooped sadly. 

"You all lost faith in me rather early." Alphys saw the toll non-existence had taken on his face, black scars streaked vertically across his eyes. "I... you..." She tried to find words. Was she shocked that he was alive, or that he knew about the Amalgamates? "Where had you been?! And to arrive so suddenly...!” "If I had contacted you before, I doubt you would have ever let me in at all, despite our considerable past." 

Alphys tried to recall, but the memories were vague and elusive. It'd been many years since she and Sans had been his lab partners. It was indeed correct if humiliating to him at first, that Alphys had worked faster, more than doubling their shared efforts. Back then, the innocence of being out-performed in mutual success had somehow shaken him more than failure could have.

In addition, the young scientist had been diligent and essentially truthful, but she had a way of skimming over unpleasant facts, a character flaw that had never truly left her in the years since. At first, despite Alphys's obvious ability and good nature, Gaster hadn’t really gotten along with her. It had taken a long time to build the camraderie that the three had eventually shared.

But Gaster would never let himself lose his composure. By the time his feelings for her had become truly distracting, he had already fallen into the void.

  


Alphys had been avoiding entering her True Lab, but after the tension of meeting Gaster once more, the Amalgamates didn't seem quite as frightening. The dizzying clouds of Memoryheads continued to chatter their invitations, while the convulsing, yet playful Endogeny lapped at the chow in its bowl. The gangly Reaper Bird and the fragrant Lemon Bread had begun to speak again in a quiet cacophony, as if to each other. Snowdrake's Mother, hearing the commotion, had walked slowly to the others as if to keep from spilling out onto the tile floor, yet still seemed relatively pleased to see Alphys.

"You can become one of us." "You can change." "You don't have to be afraid anymore." Out of her cell phone's speaker, the Memoryheads continue. "Be free." "We can be free." "Free us all."

Sometimes the Memoryheads showed Alphys visions. In the dreams, she truly is Determined, her scales beginning to gleam with bioluminescence, peeling back in an unearthly light emanating from within herself. They show her what could be herself, melting, re-forming, duplicating all wrong, in beautiful errors... amorphously shimmering, shedding her past, those useless memories... It is wonderful, it is frightening.

"I'm sorry. You know I can't." She might have performed unethical experiments under duress, but she told herself she wouldn't inject the stuff into herself. If Gaster had, well, look where it had got him.

  


If the good doctor had the grace to disappear for real... at least Sans could properly mourn. That was the reason that Sans had come to Hotland, to the Core.

He didn't carry flowers, as there was naturally no gravestone to remember the doctor by. There was only this great apparatus, looming beyond the lava. Its power conversion gave the monsters not only the power to survive, but to live modern lives. More than that, it was Gaster's true legacy, and Sans and Alphys had worked with the doctor to bring it into existence.

Still gazing at the Core, Sans allowed himself to feel... something. Grief for the life that Sans couldn't go back to, working with those two. Even as the skeleton could not be sure he would not be forced to re-live the past, time passed, and he had learned to move on. Sans had expected for nothing to surprise him anymore.

  


The next evening, Gaster again knocked at Alphys's locked door.

This was not the first time the skeleton had felt something un-nameable. But it was difficult for him to really consider that this little lizard monster alone could have such an effect on him. Why?

Gaster had hoped her memories of him were not gone entirely. He had hoped she would remember their past work together. But to ask directly so soon seemed rude. He was not used to being the one to request such things. In life, he had been one who answered, the one who knew.

In any case, Alphys wouldn't allow herself to truly enjoy much, as long as the issue of the Amalgamates still weighed on her mind. But she was not displeased to be in his presence, not startled the way she was the previous night.

To create something out of nothing is impossible. With that on Gaster's mind, Alphys had finally opened the door to her lab. "Greetings." The sound of the useless pleasantry seemed to echo. Neither of them were really used to this.

"Hi." Alphys tried to smile, but her anxieties were running through her mind. _I don't know him. I don't remember. I wasn't a great lab assistant... I thought he had fallen down..._ "I was wondering, uh...." 

"Why I am here?" Given a concrete question to answer, Gaster seemed to know what to say once more. The gears seemed to be turning again after years of disuse, but it would take time. "I wish to help you."

  


"You're _kidding._ "

Alphys didn't expect for Sans to look so anxious, distraught. "Look. I don't know exactly what happened, but... shouldn't we just be happy he's not truly gone?"

"Yeah." Sans tried to keep it together, get back into character. "Just, are you sure that was him? That accident was..." He tried to find a word both understated and accurate.

"Scary. I know. The whole thing is." Alphys finished. "I've been worrying over it ever since he left..." "Yeah, I don't blame you." "But," Alphys tried to summon her resolve, "We have to be there for him."

 _"We."_ "You worked under him, too." "Listen, I liked him. But I have to stay with my brother. You know that."

"Yes." Alphys smiled weakly.  
  


The next night, Alphys had prepared two bowls of instant ramen. She didn't know if Gaster enjoyed it, but it was the closest thing to actual food she had in her lab.

It felt like it took quite a while for him to show up. She'd fallen asleep, waiting for a simple knock at the door. When Gaster arrived, he came as a shadow, as a spirit, leaning down to take Alphys's shoulders within his hands. The stuff of the void, a presence like cold water, gently lapped against her skin, seeping into her coat. "Hello."

"Doctor..." Alphys murmured. "I miss you." "I missed you too," bubbled the void, more freely than he had ever let himself admit in life.

Alphys walked into the True Lab once more, with him by her side. Wordlessly, the connection strengthened. _Are you afraid, do you still resist? I want to know what it is to be you, to know, to feel the pattern, the sequence that is you. I want to connect to you. I don't want you to fear what we are, together._


End file.
